Kiddle search engine causes storm

Kiddle search engine that aims for the children, blocking any vulgar words goes viral. According to BBC News, the search engine blocks many common search terms including the words like; Menstruation, Balls, Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) that yield no results on the site, a decision that has angered the campaign group “Stonewall.”

“Young people regularly use the internet to find information on LGBT issues,” a Stonewall spokesperson said.

An error message is displayed as you try to search blocked words.

The search engine was registered in 2014 and is powered by Google Safe Search but has no connection with the tech giant. However the Kiddle’s parent company is not named anyway on the website but one of its early tester’s blogged that it was set up by the Russian founder of a site called Freaking News. BBC News reports.

According to Kiddle, all search results are handpicked and checked by its editors or filtered by Google Safe Search.

Other obvious search differences include the blocking of the term circumcision but not of Female Genital Mutilation, suicide but not self-harm, the actress Pamela Anderson but not Fifty Shades of Grey have been blocked

Kiddle told BBC News it had received complaints from parents and teachers before the terms were blocked during early tests.

“Most LGBT sites have forums and user generated content. Even one picture of a half-naked man posted as an avatar on such sites is enough to turn away most parents,” the firm said.

It added that it had blocked the term “sex education” because of the illustrations contained within many sites hosting such material.

“What is OK for a child of 12 may not be OK for a child of five,” it said.

Kiddle states on its website that in case some bad words are present in the search query, their guard robot will block the search. Kiddle continues to say that its server logs are deleted every 24 hours and no user data is stored.